Can Fake News Be Stopped?

Fake news is all around us today. Although it has been around for years, Facebook has given it a platform for today. I have a Facebook and I always come across some sketchy news links/sites. Some of those sites would have an intriguing headline and I would fall into the trap of clicking the link. Once inside, I realize the sites are often very unorganized and sloppy, with ads popping up everywhere. The story would be something completely different than the headline I read. this is a strategy that news sites use to get traffic to their site.

Facebook realized that there were some fake news sites spreading on the website, so they updated their policies and have gone into the site to fix this major issue. By fixing it, they got rid of the option for users to edit the website links.

 But according to the article by Mashable, people have found another way to spread misinformation through a loophole within the social media platform. Apparently, in a Facebook group chat, users figured out that they can still edit the link due to a glitch within the system. This glitch allows for people to edit the “link preview data” to whatever they want, even if the article is something completely different. This is how fake news spreads.

This glitch has been reported to Facebook, but the website still hasn’t made any fixes. This issue needs to be fixed soon. There are over a billion users on Facebook and each of them have an opinion. If they could get ahold of changing a link preview and make it say anything they want, that could be a real issue to the people who own/work for the site.

What if someone edited a link preview of a reliable site? They could lose their credibility over this glitch. The most important thing to a journalist is to have credibility. Making sure that they are spreading the truth in their stories is top priority. This issue puts journalists’ jobs on the line. Some sites may use this to their advantage just to get the traffic clicks (also known as clickbait).

In this era of fake news and how damaging it is to our society, Facebook should be pay more attention to this issue and get the glitch fixed sooner rather than later.

Cited Source (link)
Facebook Fake News Loophole article